'Matron’s Army’ to tackle elderly abuse in our hospitals

A CRACK team of nurses and inspectors is being sent into 100 hospitals to stamp out abuse and neglect of the elderly.

Ann Abraham found elderly people are being denied even the most basic standards of care []

The move follows last week’s scathing report that
revealed elderly people are being denied even the most basic standards
of care.

Health Service Ombudsman Ann Abraham found elderly
patients had been left hungry and thirsty, in soiled clothes, without
adequate pain relief or an emergency call button in reach.

The
hit squads of former elderly patients, nurses and Government care
inspectors will make unannounced ­visits to see how pensioners are being
treated badly.

Where they find neglect, the
teams will have the power to close wards and even hospitals if managers
fail to meet stringent conditions. Care Minister Paul Burstow said last
night: “We are determined to end the culture in our hospitals which
allows tragic and harrowing cases of elderly neglect.”

Today the Sunday Express can reveal even senior hospital bosses admit
hospital staff are failing to care for elderly patients properly. This
comes from research by charity Age UK, which interviewed more than 60
senior hospital doctors, managers and health authority bosses.

Recently
Age UK found that someone with malnutrition dies in hospital every 10
minutes and up to a third of all older people admitted to hospital and
care homes are at risk of malnutrition.

It
found malnourished patients stay up to 10 days longer in hospital, only
just over half of older patients describe their food as good, 37 per
cent of in-patients said they did not get enough help to eat and 42 per
cent said there were not always enough nurses on duty. Mr Burstow said:
“These reports highlight poor leadership and a loss of focus on what
matters most: the dignity and compassion that should be at the heart of
all good care.

“Ministers can’t flip a switch
to turn compassion back on but what we are determined to do is to send a
hit squad of nurses and inspectors into 100 hospitals unannounced and
take effective action where necessary.”

The
Sunday Express has uncovered shocking examples of neglect. In one case,
nurses at a top hospital left Colin Bowyer, 70, in a ward, wearing a
nappy on a mattress on the floor.

He had been
admitted to John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, days earlier with jaundice
due to prostate cancer. His wife Vivien said she found him writhing in
pain.

Mrs Bowyer, 71, from Oxford, said: “You
don’t expect to see something like that in an NHS hospital.” Mr Bowyer
died three days later in January, 2008.

The
Radcliffe, a university teaching hospital, is one of 10 condemned in Ms
Abraham’s report. Its Chief Nurse said: “Patients should always be
treated with ­compassion and understanding. The report is a timely
reminder.”

In another case, Alexander Barton,
71, of Harrogate, North Yorkshire, was sent to Ripon hospital last
December with a lung condition. In three weeks he dropped from 11 stone
to seven.

His wife, Maureen, 71, said: “He
would often shake, which made it ­difficult for him to eat. The staff
would put his meal on one side for him and leave it there. By the time
he came home he was skin and bones.”